The main thing to watch now is to see if the Palestinian voters hold Hamas accountable if they turn out to be no less corrupt than Fatah, and fail to provide the basic services which are expected out of an elected government, as opposed to continuing to spend all their time and money figuring out more inventive ways to kill Israelis. If the latter is true, then all those wailing on Thursday that this was a disaster for Middle East peace will be validated.

How would the democratic discrediting of a continuingly violent Hamas be bad?

It seems to me that the President hit exactly the right note yesterday. Congratulations on holding a fair election; congratulations on having a transfer of power, which is the acid test of democracy. Here's another lesson: elections have consequences. Either moderate, or be ignored.

I must admit, it is ironic (even amusing) that all the Palestinian apologists, such as NPR and the Europeans, are now beside themselves in contemplating Hamas as the governing force. For 20+ years, these doves (to be polite) have denigrated Israel and sympathized and boosted the Palestinians, and largely ignored the sorry truths about the situation. Now that the terror masters are big news, the media just doesn't know what to say.

It's like when the KARIN A (I think that was the name) was captured by Israel. The media was silent, but the pictures of all the weapons said it all.

jim hamlen:

I really admired President Bush for refusing to talk to that pipsqueak Arafat after the Karina-A incident. Bush gave him a chance and once he blew it, there would be no more negotiations. Soon afterwards, Bush asked a group of reporters: "Who does he think he's kidding?" Well, the reporters for one thing, but certainly not the president.

It was a useful and satisfying contrast to the Clinton administration.

Five years ago I met a UK-educated Palestinian working for a dot com in San Francisco. He stated that if he lived in Gaza he'd be a Hamas member. His reasons had nothing to do with corruption. Pretending that this election result was about that is blindness.

i see it as a no lose situation. either hamas moderates and starts governing in good faith, or they bring final destruction to the palistinians. either way the terrorism stops from that group of people.

b:

Would you vote for Fatah or Hamas?

If Hamas fails to moderate and attacks Israel, the Israelis close the border and turn the IDF loose. After all, with all the settlers out of the Palestinian territories, there are no friendlies in the kill box.

toe:

Exactly, and the most efficient way to bring that about was always to have Hamas become the government of the independent state.

oj: How the heck would I know? If I were French I'd probably hate America--so what?

Why would you hate America?

We will know soon enough. Either Hamas will deliver for their constituency that which it desires, or they will be turned out of office, democratically or violently. Either way, there can hardly be a downside to this election result. There is a clarity to the situation that will ensue whichever way things go, and that is a good thing.

Any democracy that is compliant to the electorate, i.e., the elections are fairly counted and the results therefrom followed, will of necessity have to deliver peace and prosperity. Warfare is a democratic option only in those cases where victory is assured, or there is no choice but to resist attack. Naysayers can make all the noise they want, but now is the time where the rubber must meet the road. Hamas will either moderate, or be destroyed. Either way, Israel wins.

Posted by: Michael Gersh at January 27, 2006 12:18 PM

Because I would be raised in a culture in which the defining idea is "equality" (at least for those of the French race), to which America's defining idea of "liberty" is directly opposed. But mostly due to jealousy, because that's all that anti-Americanism really is.

Honestly, though, if I were Palestinian my hope is that I wouldn't vote Fatah or Hamas--I would move to America and vote Republican.

b:

It would obviously be best if we just brought them all here.

If Hamas fails to moderate and try to improve the conditions they govern, and then the voters simply shrug and keep Hamas in power, that's when you can say there's a crisis, because it would mean the average Palestinian has a totally different mindset from voters in any other representative government.

I really can't think of any democratically elected government that has supported militarism/terrorism over improving the conditions of their voters who have been able to maintain their power without scuttling the entire democratic process (see Chavez, Hugo, as the latest example of that strategy). Those who expect the worst from Hamas apparently think they won't have to go that far, and that the voters will enjoy a government that gets them bombed by IDF missiles on a nightly basis. I have my doubts that strategy will play well for very long.

Yes, the Palestinians are viewed, across the political spectrum, as sub-human.

One down, six to go.

To the person who would bring all of the so - called
Palestinians here to america.

Have more arab potential killers loose on American soil? Perhaps, some enlightened citizen can explain
why potential bomb throwers are here now? Thirty years of NY Times subscriptions ended 2 yrs. ago as
I could not take any more bleeding heart liberal - left lies.

Ben Sanders

were you a Palestinian, would you have voted for Fatah or Hamas?

the Palestinians are viewed, across the political spectrum, as sub-human

One must also keep in mind that even if the elections are open and fair, if Hamas simply shoots out of hand anyone who suggests peace with Israel (which is done now), you can hardly call the result "democratic".

Mr. Sanders:

I think the point is that if they come here, they won't have dynamite, plastique, and the AK-47s. They certainly won't have Kassams. That sort of stuff would get them deported (or killed) pretty quickly over here.

It would be very ironic if a fair number (~100,000) of Palestinians did come to the US - in a few years, their kids would be playing baseball (and soccer) and listening to U2 or Eminem or Mary J. Blige or whomever. It wouldn't be like that gang from El Salvador or the old days of car swarming over the burnt ruins of targeted vehicles in Gaza.

But I think there will be a lot of death and murder in Gaza and West Bank for the next few weeks. Totally internecine, of course.

AOG:

No, the belief that their culture is unchangeable and necessarily unique is the essence of racism.

Mr. Sanders:

There are at least a couple million American Arabs but when al Qaeda wanted to blow something up it had to recruit non-Americans.

OJ

Regarding "couple million American Arabs", they have been sending money to al Qaeda etc., but you imply that it is important that they have not been violent in the US. I don't get your reasoning.

(It is arguable that Sirhan Sirhan had as much of an impact on America has 9/11)

Mr. Judd;

Are you saying that we have to believe that either the Palestinian culture can change instantly, or that it is forever immutable? It is not possible to believe that it is unlikely to change and if it does, not rapidly?

Personally, I think it is immutable as long as the rest of the world acts as enablers for its dysfunction. A drunk doesn't sober up when everyone else compensates for his alcoholism and tells him that he's not really a drunk.

h:

No, they haven't. The Irish meanwhile did fund the IRA for decades.

AOG:

Yes, your belief that they are different than other peoples who have changed rapidly is just a function of the way we've demonized them.

We used to feel the same way about Slavs, blacks, Asians, Catholics, etc. Palestinians/Arabs are just the latest immutables.

Ah, the old bait and switch technique. I talk about societies and you talk about people. Let me clarify – by "Palestinian" I mean the culture / society. If I were writing of ethnicity, I would say "Arab" or possibly "Semitic".

As for the other groups, I note that the groups that fall in to the "rapidly changed" category were

• Immigrants to the USA
• Societies invaded and culturally adjusted by the USA military

Of course, the other bait and switch you've done is to claim that I said the Palestinians could not change. Of course they can. And the Modern American Left could realize that Socialism is a failure and embrace the free market. I consider both roughly as likely.

Oh, sorry, I made yet another comparison to a group which didn't adjust rapidly. That's clearly racist, whereas comparing the Palestinians to groups who did adjust rapidly isn't racist. I'll try to remember that in the future.

We invaded Eastern Europe? You're old enough to remember the Cold War when folks told us how Slavs were naturally disposed against democracy. Then they tore down the Wall....

Applying your own standard though it is likely that the Palestinians have a huge advantage in democratizing because of being conquered and occupied by democrats.

Mr. Judd;

Honestly, I don't remember anyone ever telling me the Slavs were naturally disposed against democracy. What I remember is people telling me that there wasn't any difference between Communism and Democracy, except maybe Communism was kinder and gentler. It was denial of enslavement, not the claim they deserved it (however, I have heard such a claim about East Asians).

Eastern Europe is an interesting laboratory, though. It does provide counter examples to my categorization. What else can we learn from it?

We have East Germany, which was de facto occupied by West Germany. Poland and Czechoslovakia had something close to liberal democracy pre-WWII (and the latter didn't survive the stress of the transition). The Baltics inherited from Prussia. Bulgaria and Hungary, on the other hand, impress with their rapid progress. On the other hand, Ukraine is still struggling, Belarus is a pit, Albania is having problems, and Yugoslavia didn't go so well either.

What do we see, then? That in real life the rapidity of reponse for a society is highly variable. For various reasons I've detailed elsewhere in the comments, I think the Palestinian society is going to fall far out on the "not successful" scale. I expect that in 10 years they will be far more like the Somalis than the Kurds.

I think that if the UN hadn't interfered, the Palestinians would have benefited far more from being occupied by an Anglospheric nation. However, once the UN refugee camps were set up, the emergence of a seriously dysfunctional society was almost guaranteed.

As a further note, and to return to the enabler comment, another not trivial difference is that no one makes excuses for Eastern Europe. The rest of the world doesn't enable social pathology there, as is done to the Palestinians. President Bush's tough stance ("behave or be ignored") is precisely the kind of attitude change that is required before Palestinian society can begin to recover. Just like disadvantaged kids, glossing over their problems is not helpful – setting high expectations with no excuses is what will create results.

Israel is an Anglospheric nation, and Palestine was part of the Anglosphere, though a Eastern Europe demonstrates, even occupation by a Communist nation is no bar to rapid transformation into normal peaceful liberal democracies.

(Slavs: http://www.49thparallel.bham.ac.uk/back/issue7/cassanello.htm)